Greville, W. James, Newton, Philip M., Roche, Bryan and Dymond, Simon (2013) Conditioned suppression in a virtual environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 29 (3). pp. 552-558. ISSN 0747-5632
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Abstract
Virtual environments (VEs) provide an inexpensive way of conducting ecologically valid psychological research. The present study used a VE to demonstrate conditioned suppression, a behavioral model of anxiety, in a first-person perspective video game. During operant training, participants learned to shoot crates to find gold bars and thus score points in the game. Next, during Pavlovian conditioning, a colored light (i.e., conditioned stimulus: CS+) was followed by a white noise unconditioned stimulus (US) while a different colored light (CS−) was not paired with the US. Probe trials in a final testing phase were then used to assess suppression. We found significant suppression of accurate responding (shots hitting the designated targets) during the presence of the CS+ relative to the CS−, both in terms of total hits and hits as a proportion of total shots. Importantly, this effect emerged despite the overall level of operant responding being undiminished during the CS+. Our findings are consistent with related studies examining human behavior in real environments, and demonstrate the potential of VEs in combination with a modestly aversive CS to allow a detailed behavioral profile of anxiety to emerge.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | The definitive version of this article is available at DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.016 |
Keywords: | Conditioned suppression; Conditioning; Virtual environment; First person perspective video game; Anxiety; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology |
Item ID: | 6810 |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.016 |
Depositing User: | Dr. Bryan Roche |
Date Deposited: | 15 Jan 2016 10:31 |
Journal or Publication Title: | Computers in Human Behavior |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
URI: | https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/6810 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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